On the go and no time to finish that story right now? Your News is the place for you to save content to read later from any device. Register with us and content you save will appear here so you can access them to read later.

The Auditor-General has slammed the education ministry for having little information on the cost of its efforts to lift Maori achievement, or their success.

In a report summarising five years of audits released today, Auditor-General Lyn Provost said progress for Maori was still too slow, despite her belief significant improvement was a "realistic objective".

"It is well known that there is a gap between Maori and non-Maori achievement," the report said.

The Auditor-General chose the topic of Maori education because there were still disproportionate numbers of Maori children not reaching their full potential, she said.

"The education sector has an integral role to play in reducing the gap ."

" Significant improvement in Maori education is a realistic objective."

Provost found there were too many Maori education initiatives that were not connected or evaluated for cost-effectiveness, despite a $1.2 billion spend on Maori education each year.

She said the Ministry of Education could not accurately identify the funding for all programmes focused on Maori students; and that evaluation information on the effectiveness of programmes was scarce.

For example, of the relevant programmes, only three had evaluation information available.

"In our view, because it uses public money to fund programmes and initiatives, the Ministry of Education needs to work out how much these activities cost, whether they are effective, and whether they add any value overall, and to Maori students in particular."